Published By Demilade Aderibigbe
A 21-year-old man, Desmond Ikechukwu Okafor, who desperately sought a fortune from kidnapping and resolved to actualize the devil- manipulated desire on his neighbour’s eight-year-old son in Lagos, for a ransom, has biten more than he could chew.
Desmond, alongside his co-pilot in the heinous crime, Egwuonwu Gift Iyke, 34, did not waste time in making their demand, the Lagos State Police Command said in a press release.
Having kidnapped the boy, Daniel Chukwudi, on July 11, 2021, the two-man gang put a call through to the victim’s parents the following day, and put a price tag of N2.5m on him, even with a clause, “as a condition for his release from captivity or else he would be killed”.
Desmond had cashed in on his closeness to the victim’s parents, an opportunity he explored to lure the hapless boy out of their residence in the Aboru area, near Ipaja, Lagos.
In the press statement, issued by the Lagos State Police Command’s Public Relations Officer (PPRO), CSP Adekunle Ajisebutu, “The kidnap was planned and executed by the victim’s neighbour, Desmond Okechukwu Okorafor who, using his unhindered access to the family, lured the victim from his parents’ home at Aboru, Ipaja, and adopted him to Ajangbadi area of Lagos, where he was kept in custody for six days”.
“Following report by the distraught parents, operatives of the State Intelligence Bureau (SIB) began a painstaking, diligent investigation which led to the arrest of the two suspects in their criminal hideout, while the victim was also rescued from his detention, where he was kept incommunicado”, the PPRO said.
Meanwhile, the state Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, has directed that the suspects should be charged to court, vowing that kidnappers and other criminal elements would not be allowed to operate in the State.